Snow brings Barcelona to a complete collapse

Highly unusual and extremely intense snowfall provoked a huge chaos in Barcelona on Monday as streets throughout the Catalan capital were covered in thick snow.

Since midday, the city of Barcelona received the biggest snowfall since 1962, which resulted in the public bus transport system to shutdown. The public metro transport system remains open, nevertheless with huge queues. The government has announced plans to keep the metro open all night if needed and also announced plans to provide hotel rooms for those affected.

Given the highly extraordinary situation, the Barcelona government activated its municipal emergency plan. Authorities also shut down the AP-7 highway and the national N-II. The border with France was also completely shut down leaving 4,000 trucks and around 1,000 vehicles stuck at the frontier.

The intense snowfall also meant that 142,000 children couldn’t get to school. A collapse of various high-voltage cables also meant that around 200,000 Fecsa-Endesa clients were left without electricity.